Winners of Competition To Make Over Detroit’s ‘Scary’ Viaducts Announced

Today Detroit’s Midtown Viaducts Public Art + Light Project (funded by the New Economy Initiative and the Knight Foundation) announced the winners chosen to give three “scary” viaducts on Cass, Second, and Third Avenues a makeover.

An article in The Detroit News reported that Detroit-based artist groups bioLINIA and New D Media Arts, along with Ann Arbor-based r+d LAB, will each receive $75,000 to fund their installations. bioLINIA’s Reflector, installed in the Cass Avenue underpass, will feature 7,500 light reflectors, while r+d LAB is planning to hang 22 LED light boxes on the walls and ceiling and ceiling of the Second Avenue Viaduct for a piece called Resonance. New D Media Arts has created an animated design they call Light Bender, which will involve motion sensors that throw light where activated. Detroit is really getting soft, isn’t it? (New York’s Department of City Planning, are you reading this?)